The invention relates to a focal-plane leaf shutter for photographic cameras, having an opening group of leaves and a closing group of leaves, the slot-forming main leaves of which each form a parallelogram linkage with a pair of carrier levers, the carrier levers being mounted by means of positionally fast pivot journals on a shutter plate along one short side of the exposure aperture and the main leaves being rotatably secured by means of bearing journals on the free ends of the carrier levers, while the secondary leaves are rotatably connected with the carrier levers at intervals between the pivot journals and the bearing journals.